Back to real life now

I hope you all had a great holiday season. We had a very peaceful Christmas, Sophie was feeling better after being sick the entire week before Christmas, her fever was down and the puking had finally stemmed. She had a blast opening all her presents, which she did all on her own by grabbing the paper, and as she was pulling it to her mouth to chew on it, opened the gift. She raked in all kinds of toys and books, music and a very sizable donation from Grandpa and Grandma to her college fund!

She got her second set of vaccinations the 28th. I was dreading this day because the last round she had made her scream for practically three days when she was not sleeping. Not fun. She did much better this time, only fussing a while, but then something awful happened... she started teething. Nobody ever warned me what a mess teething is. She drools and pukes and fusses and chews and bites and it.is.not.fun.

But- between all that she has learned LOTS of really fun things, the most fun being rolling over, raspberries and reaching.

She learned to roll at her doctor appointment several weeks ago, when he asked me if she could and I said very truthfully that she could not and she promptly did, just to prove me wrong. I have a feeling that will not be the last time she makes a liar of me. She does not consistently roll over, just when she feels like it, and that is not often. She learned to make raspberry sounds when we put Orajel on her gums the first time, and now she just randomly does it. It cracks me up.

She just decided that she was going to grab for things too. Hair, earrings, glasses, necklaces toys and especially your face are now fair game in the world of Sophie. She is so decisive about it, that is what cracks me up. You can SEE her looking at it, deciding that she wants it, and reaching right out and getting it. She has gotten to where she leans toward you if she wants you, which is a little more than gratifying. She has also really gotten into Peek a Boo, even going so far as learning to "hide" her face with her favorite blanket and then shyly glancing out at you. Sophie and her blanket are a trip all together, she just takes it and rubs her face, and gets excited when she sees it. Too cute.

Every day is seems that she becomes less and less the little baby I brought home from the hospital. She is learning things so quickly, becoming more active and fun almost by the minute. It is exciting to see her grow up, and it is sad to see her grow up. That could be the hardest part about being a mom, watching your baby change, knowing they will not change back.

For New Years we had our first official "grown up" party. We invited our friends and made a big meal (with just a little bit of help from my mom, because really I'm not THAT grown up). Mom graciously kept Soph for me, even though she had a houseful of hooligans, so that I could enjoy the party and not be rocking Sophie to sleep all night. She is such a blessing to us. We had fun place settings that I forgot to take a picture of, we played lots of games and I ordered us a murder mystery for after dinner. We all dressed up for that and laughed until our sides ached. We had stuffed pork loin, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, lots of other goodies and a punch bowl filled with our grown up favorite... Mt. Dew. Oh yes, our classiness knows no bounds. At midnight we had our grape juice in tall champagne glasses. I had seen an article in a magazine that a cool way to dress up your toast was to add pomegranate seeds to your glass and they will float when you pour your "champagne" in and look very fun and festive. It DID look fun and festive, until someone, probably one of the guys, said they looked like bloody teeth floating around. That kind of took the fun right out of that.

Jacob has been off work all week, which means he has been home at night! It has been so nice having him to snuggle with at bedtime and to help with Sophie at night. Since she was sick her bedtime schedule has not been good. We were in a nice groove, now- not so much. I have not been to bed before 1:00 a.m. in weeks. Ugh. The bad thing about Jacob being home is that now he is going back to work and I will be alone again. I hate that, but I am proud that Jacob works so hard at such crappy hours to take care of his family. He is such a joy to me, he makes me laugh every day and makes our life together a dream come true. Our life is good.

In the days between holidays we spent a lot of time with our friends at home, or at my Momma's playing games. On Saturday we visited Pappaw and Nana and then went to Christmas with my Grandmama and the rest of Mom's family in Carmi. Sophie was the hit of the party, as it should be.

If you are wondering where all the pictures of all of this is, there just are not many. I am not good at remembering to take pictures, unlike others in my family (not mentioning any names here.) Here are a few of what I do have handy, I'll post more later.

Top - Sophie has decided she really likes to be held like this, but it is a little nervous for the one playing with her from underneath, directly in the line of fire.

Middle: Our little family.

Bottom: Sophie loves it when you hold her away and sing "LA LA LA". She makes this face EVERY time I do it.

I never did get a new tree topper, so I guess it won for this year. But NEXT year- it has got to go. Really.

So that is the update on my world. I hope you all had as good a break as I did. Back to real life now.

(For some reason blogger keeps messing up my hard returns, so this reads as one big paragraph at times. Sorry.)

Edited to add:

Sophie also learned to give kisses- if you make kissy noises at her she leans toward you and gives big open mouth kisses. It's great.